We’re Going To Marriage Counseling and You’ve Got A Front Row Seat

This is rather unusual, even for us admittedly. We spend our efforts to put our best foot forward and brag about each other on social media, share the lovey-dovey posts, and yet here we are going to marriage counseling. How did this happen? Well, that will be discussed in the coming weeks. (but don’t worry, we’re not leaving each other!)

In this post, however, I would like to address why we’re doing it. Here we go!

It’ll Help Us Process It

During our first session of counseling, we asked if it would be detrimental to our progress if we blogged about it. What Silas said is if we were willing to share it, it would also be a good way to help us verbalize and process through what we’re learning. We just happened to choose a much more public space instead of journaling.

The World Needs To See the Good AND the Bad

We’ve heard it said in a sermon that social media can be so discouraging. We see everyone’s “highlight reel” and use that to compare to our mediocre reality. Your lunch never looks as good, your clothes aren’t as cool, AND you haven’t worked out in weeks!

Even Tommy and I highlight the good things, however, we also want to bring attention to the hard things. We want to help remove the cultural taboo that counseling is exclusively meant for people on the brink of divorce.

This reminds me of a scene from Billy Madison where he tries to cope with a boy who’s ashamed of wetting himself on a school field trip. Adam Sandler then splashes water on his groin and says “You ain’t cool unless you pee your pants”. We’re not necessarily saying it’s cool to go to counseling, but it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

Guys Can Write About the Feels, Too

It would seem to me that a large percentage of bloggers out there are women. Men can sometimes be stereotyped as these rough and tough dudes who don’t talk about their emotions and certainly aren’t allowed to cry. (Side note: my husband is not a crier) This leads me to believe that the information out there can be biased and even one-sided with only the woman telling her side of the story.

Don’t worry dudes, Tommy is here to level the playing field a bit.

It’ll be extremely helpful to me as his wife to hear his side of things and hopefully, other wives can gain a level of perspective for their husbands through his writing.

Ultimately, our intentions are true and we sincerely hope that through our vulnerability and truth-telling that we’ll have some small, positive influence on your marriage as well.